Saturday

1) "For all the recent advances, it's still not known how this one kilogram or so of cells actually encodes information, how it holds experiences, memories, dreams, and intentions. He doesn't doubt that in years to come, the coding mechanism will be known, though it might not be in his lifetime. Just like the digital codes of replicating life held within DNA, the brain's fundamental secret will be laid open one day. But even when it has, the wonder will remain, that mere wet stuff can make this bright inward cinema of thought, and sight and sound and touch bound into a vivid illusion of an instantaneous present, with a self, another brightly wrought illusion, hovering like a ghost at its centre. Could it ever be explained, how matter becomes conscious? He can't imagine a satisfactory account, but he knows it will come, the secret will be revealed # over decades, as long as the scientists and the institutions remain in place, the explanations will refine themselves into an irrefutible truth about consciousness. It's already happening, the work is being done in laboratories not far from this theatre, and the journey will be completed, Henry's certain of it. That's the only kind of faith he has. There's grandeur in this view of life."

2) "With eyes closed he sees the newspaper offices, the curled-edged coffee-stained carpet tiles, the ferocious heating system that bleeds boiling rusty water, the receding phalanxes of fluorescent lights illuminating the chaotic corners, the piles of paper that no one touches, for no one cares to know what they contain, what they are for, and the overinhabited desks pushed too close together. It's the spirit of the school art room. Everyone too hard-pressed to start sorting through the old dust heaps. The hospital is the same. Rooms full of junk, cupboards and filing cabinets that no one dares open. Ancient equipment in cream tin-plate housing, too heavy, too mysterious to eject. Sick buildings, in use for too long, that only demolition can cure. Cities and states beyond repair. The whole world resembling Theo's bedroom. A race of extraterrestrial grown-ups is needed to set right the general disorder, then put everyone to bed for an early night. God was once supposed to be a grown-up, but in disputes He childishly took sides. Then sending us an actual child, one of His own -- the last thing we needed. A spinning rock already swarming with orphans..."

3) "This is the growing complication of the modern condition, the expanding circle of moral sympathy. Not only distant peoples are our brothers and sisters, but foxes too, and laboratory mice, and now the fish. Perowne goes on catching and eating them, and though he'd never drop a live lobster into boiling water, he's prepared to order one in a restaurant. The trick, as always, the key to human success and domination, is to be selective in your mercies. For all the discerning talk, it's the close at hand, the visible that exerts the overpowering force. And what you don't see... That's why in gentle Marylebone the world seems so entirely at peace."

4) "What he likes about cooking is its relative imprecision and lack of discipline -- a release from the demands of the theatre. In the kitchen, the consequences of failure are mild: disappointment, a wisp of disgrace, rarely voiced. No one actually dies. He strips and chops eight fat cloves of garlic and adds them to the onions. From recipes he draws only the broadest principles. The cookery writers he admires speak of 'handfuls' and 'a sprinkling', of 'chucking in' this or that. They list alternative ingredients and encourage experimentation. Henry accepts that he'll never make a decent cook, that he belongs to what Rosalind calls the hearty school."

5) "They were striking the set of a play, a humble, one-handed domestic drama, without permission from the cast. They started in what she called her sewing room -- his old room. She was never coming back, she no longer knew what knitting was, but wrapping up her scores of needles, her thousand patterns, a baby's half-finished yellow shawl, to give them all away to strangers was to banish her from the living. They worked quickly, almost in a frenzy. She's not dead, Henry kept telling himself. But her life, all lives, seemed tenuous when he saw how quickly, with what ease, all the trappings, all the fine details of a lifetime could be packed and scattered, or junked. Objects became junk as soon as they were separated from their owner and their pasts -- without her, her old tea cosy was repellent, with its faded farmhouse motif and pale brown stains on cheap fabric, and stuffing that was pathetically thin. As the shelves and drawers emptied, and the boxes and bags filled, he saw that no one owned anything really. It's all rented, or borrowed. Our possessions will outlast us, we'll desert them in the end. They worked all day, and put out twenty-three bags for the dustmen."

Some hours before dawn Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon, wakes to find himself already in motion, pushing back the covers from a sitting position, and then rising to his feet. It’s not clear to him when exactly he became conscious, nor does it seem relevant. He’s never done such a thing before, but he isn’t alarmed or even faintly surprised...

So starts Ian McEwan’s Saturday , a novel about an extraordinary day in the life of the London doctor Henry Perowne. This particular day happens to be February 15, 2003, and Henry is waking up to his affluent life in London, beside his beloved wife, and has much to look forward to: his talented son’s blues band rehearsal, in which they will perform a new song for him, the arrival of his daughter from Italy, and the dinner he is to prepare and share with the entire family, to top it all off. Henry Perowne has a wonderful and affluent life.

However, a few unlikely events happen on the way to these happier plans that cause Henry to ponder the troubling world events that surround his insulated life, such as his country’s security fears since 9/11. First, he witnesses something while looking out at the sky during his early morning reverie that unsettles him and turns his mind toward the state of his own family’s security. Then, on his way to meet a colleague for a squash game, he must dodge a huge crowd of war-protestors, an event that is very important that day in London. This protest march is not only the constant reminder of his unsettled feelings, but also an indirect cause of the minor car accident he has on his way to his game. Unfortunately, Henry’s accident brings him in contact with a dangerous young man named Baxter, and the confrontation the two men have proves to be potentially disastrous for Henry’s family.

McEwan’s book is marvelously paced; even though most of what is written takes place in Henry Perowne’s head (he’s a neurosurgeon, after all), there is enough action in this story to balance the weight of Henry’s thoughts and memories. Also, I think that the way time passes in the book is fascinating--at certain points, the day seems too crowded with various events, and I felt sorry for Henry, to have all this to do, on a day off! Then, at other spots, time seems to pass at an excruciatingly slow pace. This is one of the aspects that makes this novel seem so real to me. One other point I appreciated was that, while Henry was feeling uneasy about war and terrorism, the real danger came from someone he might have met any day of his life, on the streets of London: The biggest danger to his family was close to home.

Ian McEwan’s novel is a thought-provoking look at how lives can be drastically affected by certain events, many of which cannot be predicted. It is also a relevant statement about how we perceive the potential dangers in our lives, and the importance of enjoying what we have, to live in the here and now.

I really was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying this one, since I'd read McEwan's earlier novel Amsterdam and didn't like it--in fact, the only reason I finished it was because I was stranded with it.